Three years ago, Wet Leg played a sweaty, sold-out show at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel—one of those blink-and-you-missed-it moments that now feel like a time capsule. Back then, they were the band behind “Chaise Longue,” a novelty hit with fangs. Today, they’re Grammy winners, BRIT champs, and veterans of a Harry Styles stadium support slot. Their self-titled debut went gold in the UK and broke into the US Top 20. Their new album, Moisturizer, arrives with the kind of pressure most bands would buckle under—but Wet Leg never did care for the rules.
Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, the Isle of Wight duo who once started this band “for fun,” now return flanked by a full touring band—Ellis Durand on bass, Henry Holmes on drums, and Joshua Mobaraki handling guitar and synths. Produced once again by Dan Carey, Moisturizer is equal parts snarl and sugar rush, its jagged edges softened by the band’s singular sense of humour and pop intuition.
Written in Southwold during a horror-movie-fuelled writing retreat, the album is both more chaotic and more composed than its predecessor. It kicks off with “CPR,” a scuzzy, half-sung punch in the gut where Teasdale asks, “Is it love or suicide?” The guitars squeal and the drums land like a bar fight. It’s a hell of an opener—and an immediate reminder that Wet Leg aren’t interested in playing it safe.
There’s a new brazenness to their aesthetic too. Teasdale’s recent bikini-clad, muscle-flexing stage persona has prompted predictable pearl-clutching online, especially over her unapologetically unshaven armpits. Her response? A tongue-in-cheek promise to shave—if they knock Oasis off the UK’s top spot. Spoiler alert – they did.
Lyrically, Moisturizer is feral and funny. “Catch These Fists” flips the rom-com script with the biting refrain, “I don’t want your love, I just wanna fight,” turning flirtation into confrontation with a Transmission Vamp-style sneer. “Davina McCall” is bubblegum pop refracted through reality TV surrealism, while “Mangetout” cloaks its vicious lyrics—“Nice try, now get out of the way!”—in breezy melody.
The album’s finest moment might be “Pond Song,” a deceptively simple track that finds harmony in tension. Teasdale and Chambers’ vocals float like pond scum over a propulsive riff, pushing and pulling until something cathartic gives way. Elsewhere, “Pillow Talk” is all choppy guitars and post-coital candour, a raunchy standout that oscillates between vulnerability and violence.
Moisturizer isn’t just a good second record, it proves that Wet Leg are no longer the band that happened to go viral. They’re here on purpose. You won’t see them at the pub again. Next time, it’ll be an arena—and if chart history holds, it’ll be with a fresh razor in the dressing room.
Stream/Buy Moisturiser HERE.
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